


Foundations

by Smudgegirl



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Hurt Danny, M/M, Steve Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-03-07
Packaged: 2017-12-04 14:50:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/711941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Smudgegirl/pseuds/Smudgegirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first thing Danny knew was dust everywhere, not the sort of dust from not cleaning, but plaster, bricks and mortar  dust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I started writing this as a Christmas gift fic for Dante_s_hell who wanted a hurt Danny fic on her Christmas wishlist. My muse got stuck, so I guess its Christmas in March.
> 
> Special thanks and my undying gratitude to JerseyDevil for all her help, both with suggestions and beta reading. Without you this would never have been completed.

The first thing Danny knew was dust everywhere, not the sort of dust from not cleaning, but plaster, bricks and mortar  dust.  The next thing that struck him was the blinding pain.  It started in his side and radiated all the way down his left leg.   _What the hell happened?_ He had no memory of the day at all.  He remembered going to bed on his crappy pull out, being too tired to even get properly undressed, just crashing in his boxers on top of the covers.   _Oh!_  Oh maybe that's why he is still in his boxers and nothing else, the realization hits him! He is still in his apartment, well what's left of his apartment anyway.  The whole place has collapsed, there’s been an explosion? Maybe there was an earthquake, he has no clue.  
  
He can see a thin strip of light coming in through the rubble, enough to make out that it's daylight.  It could be any time though.  The team had taken the morning off to rest, they had only wrapped up the case at 3am the previous morning and then headed home, no one would miss him at HQ till way after noon.  In the distance he could hear sirens, oh good, at least that means he can't have been unconscious for too long he thinks and tries to shift his body slightly to make it easier to yell for help.  The last thing he knew, was thinking that was not a good idea as the pain went from feeling like he was being filleted by a sharp knife to feeling like someone was slowly hacking away at his intestines with a rusty blunt knife, and maybe pouring hot lava on him at the same time. _Ha! Lava,_ he thought as the darkness encroached on his vision, _typical bloody island_ , invading even his dying thoughts.  
  
Steve woke up at 10am with a jolt and a feeling of unease.  He rolled over and checked his phone only to find no missed calls and no urgent messages.  Odd, he thought, he hadn't had a nightmare, but he felt like something was off.  He contemplated calling Danny, but remembering how tired and washed out Danny had looked when he left the palace the night before, decided to let the man sleep.  Realizing he was not going to be getting any more sleep himself he opted for a quick swim and decided to go get a head start on the paperwork.  Maybe they could all get home early tonight and he could entice Danny back to his place for steak and beer.  
  
He parked his truck and ran up the stairs to the palace, still unable to shake the uneasy feeling. Duke passed him in the hall and looked at him quizzically, "I thought you would be with your partner at the scene" he said.  
  
"What scene?" Steve queried pulling out his phone to check for missed calls, what was he missing here? Something still felt off to him.  
  
"The apartment collapse?" Duke said, "one of the officers I spoke to this morning said Five-0 was there already as Detective Williams' car was there when they arrived?"  
  
\-------------------------  
  
The world went quiet for Steve, he could see Duke’s lips moving but all he could hear in his head was a loud buzzing. _Danny, Danny, Danny_ was all he could think as he pulled out his phone and pressed #1 on his speed dial, he turned and started running.  
  
He didn't even have to ask the address, that vice that had been slowly squeezing around his chest all morning suddenly made sense, Danny was in trouble. He should have known, him and Danny always had a sixth sense about each other, it was why they were so perfect together, why they made the best partners, both at work and out.  The outside of work partners thing was new, they had finally admitted to their feelings for each other after the whole "Danny's going to die in a bomb fiasco" and had been together for the past two months.  Steve had been planning to ask Danny to move in with him the next time he managed to sit down and get a few beers into him.  Not that he thought Danny needed the beer to say yes, he just thought it may make him a little less argumentative and quicker to persuade.  Why oh why had he waited? He cursed himself for dragging his feet, he cursed the latest case they had which took way too long to solve and mostly he cursed his Mom for not moving out of the house earlier.  He knew that was being slightly unfair, but he had been waiting for her to leave since he knew Danny would not be comfortable with her living there too.  Hell, Danny hardly even wanted to stop for beers when she was home.  It was on Danny's insistence that Steve had not even told Doris about their relationship yet.  
  
Steve shook his head to try and clear it as he pulled into the parking of what used to be Danny's apartment complex.  "Fuck!" he breathed out as he tried to take in what he saw.  It was just a pile of rubble, it looked like a war zone.  Looking around he found an officer he knew talking with a group of firemen.  "What's the status here?" he demanded.  
  
"We have been pulling people out of the rubble for the last hour, Sir, the injured have been taken to the hospital, and the deceased are being placed over there," the young officer motioned to a tarped off area around the corner.  
  
Steve's blood ran cold, "Do you have a list of those taken to hospital?" he requested, almost hesitantly.  A fireman thrust a clipboard into his hands and ran off to help with a woman who was currently being extracted from the rubble.  Steve scanned the list, Danny's name was not on it and no one matching his description either.  He took a deep breath and headed over to the tarped area.  
  
"Hey Max" Steve saw the Medical Examiner the minute he walked in.  
  
"Commander McGarrett..." Max looked up and stopped short when he saw the look on Steve's face.  
  
"Ummm, Please tell me Danny's not in here?" Steve said practically begging.  
  
"No, no I have not seen Detective Williams, I assume he is helping with the rescue efforts."  
  
Steve sighed, "no Max, in here in here...as in. "He waved his arms over the bodies, but couldn't bring himself to say the words.  
  
"Oh, ...oh! He lived here?" Max suddenly put the pieces together. "No, most definitely not, he's not in here.  What can I do?"  
  
"Nothing Max, keep doing your job and call me if he...I'm going to search" and with that Steve ran towards the remnants of the apartment block.  
  
\-------------------------  
  
Danny slowly clawed his way back to consciousness, the pain had dulled, but he knew better than to try moving again.  He could hear noises, people shouting and machinery being used, the strip of light that he could see earlier was larger, that was a good sign.  "Hey!"  he tried to yell, but it came out as a croak. _Right, try and clear the throat and try yelling again_.  There was a slight break in the noise.  "Hey, help, someone, please help!"  
  
"Danny!" he heard the sound of his partner’s voice immediately! "Danny, is that you? " Steve sounded frantic.  
  
"Yeah, I'm kinda stuck here," he said trying not to let a hysterical giggle creep out.  
  
The next thing he knew he saw a shadow and Steve contortioned himself through the gap and started climbing down to him.  "Steve, don't! It may not be safe, get outta here, babe, please!"  
  
"Danno! I've been out there searching for you, yelling your name over and over for the past hour, I'm not leaving you now that I've found you." Steve said firmly while feeling around as best he could to take Danny's pulse and see what injuries there were.  
  
Steve pulled out a little flashlight and shone it around to see if he could free Danny from whatever was trapping him.  "Damn, Danny" he muttered when he took in the sight before him.  Danny's legs were both trapped under a fairly large column of rubble, but even worse was the steel rebar sticking through Danny's side just above his hip.  
  
Danny looked up at Steve, the pain he was in evident in his eyes, "Look, I'm a human shish kebab" he tried joking as a way to remove the frightened look from Steve’s face.  "Too soon?" he said ruefully seeing the scowl that Steve now sported.  
  
"Too soon! In fact never will still be too soon, so no more jokes, okay?"  
  
Two firemen lowered themselves into the void and started prodding around discussing the various options for getting Danny out.  Danny tried to not listen, they were the experts, he had other things to worry about.  No. 1 on that list was to keep breathing.  He didn't want to worry Steve any more than he already was, but he was starting to feel light headed and each breath was becoming more and more difficult.   Eventually he started seeing spots and knew he had to say something. "Steve, ...babe, " he whispered to get Steve's attention on him.  "I can't breath, I , I,  you know I love you, hey?"  Tears were forming in the corners of his eyes.  "Please take care of Grace."  
  
Steve looked down at Danny with a mixture of panic and determination in his eyes.  "Hold on Danny, please don't give up.  We're going to get you out, please stay with me," he begged while watching his love’s eyes slowly close.  
  
The firemen’s actions got quicker and more frantic, "We may have to amputate, Sir," they said. "We're losing him!"  
  
Steve's heart plummeted, he knew that Danny would be a shell of himself if he lost his legs, but given the choice of Danny alive and in a wheelchair or with prosthetics, or Danny dead, he knew there was no choice.  "Ok," he said "do what you have to."   He saw Danny's eyes flit open and focus on him for a second and knew he had heard, a single tear rolled down Danny's cheek and his eyes closed once more.  
 **  
**


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve sat in the hard hospital chair looking at the pale, small outline in the bed.

Steve sat in the hard hospital chair looking at the pale, small outline in the bed.  It wasn't right, Danny was never small.  Well he was short, no one could deny that, but he was never small.  He was always larger than life, loud and constantly in motion.  To see him lying so still, looking so fragile was just wrong.  
  
It had been four days, four days since the apartment had collapsed, a substandard cement mix or something, weakened by the extreme heat. Steve hadn't been paying too much attention to the whys, except to make sure that everyone involved was going to pay and be prosecuted.  Four days where the 5-0 teammates had taken shifts sitting in Danny’s room waiting for him to wake up.  Logically they knew that he would not be waking up until the doctors said it was okay, they were keeping him heavily sedated while the initial healing took place.  Steve was thankful that Grace was away on the mainland with Rachel for the next week. He and Rachel had agreed that it was perhaps best for Danny to be conscious and healing before Grace saw him.  
  
Steve looked around the room, last night Danny had been running a fever and the teammates did not want to leave him, so they had all camped out.  Kono was on the floor, with a pillow she had somehow sweet talked from a passing nurse and Chin was in another plastic chair with his feet propped up on the end of the bed.  They were both finally sleeping, something that had been impossible for Steve while Danny was moaning and sweating through his fever.  The doctors had been lowering his meds and said he should wake up today, Steve could not wait to look into those blue eyes and just be able to see the life in them again.

  
\-------------------------  
  
Danny clawed his way back to consciousness, and blinked his eyes slowly open.  Bright lights, machines beeping, he breathed a small sigh of relief, he’s not dead, not dead was good.  He knew a hospital room when he saw one, sadly he was far too familiar with the hospital rooms in Hawaii. He was pleasantly surprised to find he was not in any pain, he guessed that meant they had him on a good mix of pain meds.  That was as far as he got to thinking when everything came rushing back at him, Steve giving them permission to cut off his legs, the look of sheer horror and loss on Steve's face, _oh God_ , how was he supposed to live like this? His job, playing with his Gracie, how was he going to do any of it.  He looked down the bed and saw the sheets tented over a box like structure, obviously keeping them away from his injuries, away from what would have been his legs.  He had a brief fleeting thought that obviously the stories about phantom pains and still being able to feel lost limbs were real, when the panic really set in. He felt his heart rate increase and start to beat erratically, he could not seem to catch his breath... _just great, Williams,_ he admonished himself silently, _now's just a perfect time for a panic attack!_  
  
Steve heard the machines start to beep erratically and Danny start to gasp for breath.  Kono leapt up, "What's going on? What’s wrong?" she questioned sounding panicked.  
  
Steve cursed the fact that he had obviously missed the moment that Danny had woken up and realized immediately what was going on. "I think it's a panic attack," he said quietly, "Chin, go get a nurse and hurry." He turned his attention to Danny, gently stroking his face "Hey, hey, I know you can hear me, just relax.  Try to slow your breathing down and look at me.  We're all here. You're ok, come on babe, just breath," he kept talking quietly trying to reassure Danny that everything was ok.  A nurse ran in and injected something into the IV and seconds later he calmed down and Danny's eyes slid closed, but his vice-like hold on Steve's hand remained for a while longer.  
  
Steve waited for the nurse to leave the room and then lay his head down next to Danny's while stroking the side of his face, still whispering calming words in his ear.  He looked down the bed towards Chin and suddenly the reason for Danny's panic attack was blatantly clear.  "Damnit!" he exclaimed causing the cousins to look up at him in concern. ”He doesn't know they didn't have to amputate, from this angle he can't see his feet because of that...that thing," he said waving his hand over the bottom of the bed, with a look of complete exasperation.  
  
Chin sighed in frustration, sadly shaking his head “None of us could have foreseen that, Steve, you can’t blame yourself for missing it.”   
  
Kono grabbed Steve's hand that he was still waving around helplessly, “We’ve all had a nap now, we will be here when he wakes up again and we will make sure that we explain things to him before he panics again, just calm down before the nurses throw us out of here!”  
  
With a tired, forced smile Steve took his seat in the hard plastic chair, almost unblinkingly watching Danny, even though he knew it would be a few more hours before Danny started to show signs of waking again. ****  
  
\-------------------------  
  
  
Danny groaned, his head throbbed, his throat was sore, his body hurt and his legs were aching like he’d run 10 miles. _Wait...oh_ , his heart sank once again as he remembered where he was.  
  
“Danny, hey Danny, I need you to look at me!” he heard Steve’s voice and felt his hand on his face lightly tapping his cheek.  “Come on Danno, open those beautiful eyes for me!”   
  
Danny cracked his eyes open and grunted.  All he could see was Steve, nearly nose to nose with him.  He looked tired and worried, aneurysm face hardly began to describe it.    
  
“Hey there, you with me?” Steve spoke softly but firmly. “ I need to tell you something before you freak out again, but I need to know you are listening.”  
  
Danny patted Steve’s arm and gave a weak thumbs up.  “Okay, good.  Then listen carefully.  They . did . not . amputate!”  He said the words slowly and clearly, pausing between each one. “You passed out as they  managed to lift the beams and rubble off your legs, I promise you are still all there.  Well maybe not all there up here,” he said with a small smile tapping Danny on the forehead, “but the body, its all there, you’re whole, Danno.”  
  
Danny let out a breath he did not realize he had been holding. “But, but that thing...” he trailed off, voice breaking slightly, while waving his hands down towards his feet, a tear slowly trickling out the corner of his eye.    
  
Steve cupped his face, gently wiping the tear with his thumb, “Your legs are pretty bruised, they put that over them to keep anything away from them in case it caused you more pain, that’s all, I promise!”   
  
The door to the room swung open and a doctor walked in.  "Ah, Detective Williams, I'm Dr. Green, and I am so pleased to see you awake.  Let me check you over quickly then we can talk and catch you up on where your injuries stand."  
  
Dr. Green proceeded to poke and prod Danny while making notes on his chart.  By the end of the examination Danny was sweating and in obvious pain, the doctor patted his hand, pulled out a syringe and injected it into his IV. "Give it a few minutes then you'll start to feel much better." He walked around the bed so he could easily see everyone in the room. "Detective Williams, you are extremely lucky, apart from a bad concussion, some nasty bruising and the after effects of blood loss you came out of this ordeal in pretty good shape."  
  
Steve and Danny both snorted in derision, "Really Doc? Good shape?" Danny said incredulously.  
  
"Well Detective, considering you avoided dying from blood loss, having your legs amputated and the piece of metal that went through your side missed anything major that could not be repaired, yes!  It could have been so much worse. But as it is now, a couple of days in here with us monitoring you, and a strict regime of antibiotics coupled with some out-patient physio and you'll be back to chasing bad guys round this beautiful island of ours."  
  
Danny nodded, suddenly very silent.  "Mahalo, Doc," Steve said as Dr. Green gave him a small smile and got up to leave.  "Danny, I think you need some more rest, the pain medication must be starting to do its job now?" Danny could barely wave a hand to agree, his eyes simply refused to stay open.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What? You didn't really think I could cut off Danny's legs did you?


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week later...

A week later it was finally time for Danny to go home, but a day before he was due to be released, he realized that he had one rather large problem with this. He no longer had a home to go to. He presumed Steve would want him to recuperate at his house, but this thing between them was still kind of new, and although they often spent nights together, Danny did not want to scare Commander Commitment-Phobe with the thought that he would be invading his space long term, there was also the whole Doris issue. He knew he had to start apartment searching as soon as he could, so he asked one of the nurses whom he had befriended to bring him a copy of the newspaper so he could start with this task while waiting for Steve to come and sign him out. He had asked him to stop and buy him a pair of shorts and a t-shirt so he at least had something to wear to face the outside world.

Kono came waltzing into his room carrying a canvas bag with clothes in it. “Hey Brah, ready to get out of this place?” Kono chirped with a smile.

“You have no idea! I mean the food and the decor is lovely, but it’s just lacking a certain homely ambiance,” Danny snapped back with a grin. “Did you go shopping with Steve to get me some new clothes?” He could see Steve doing some paperwork outside the door with the doctor and getting all the instructions on how to properly care for him.

“Oh yes, we had such fun! These are just a few things, the rest are at Steve’s,” she said with smirk, “I even got to buy you new undies! I did suggest some lace and satin ones, and Steve had to hide behind a counter for a while, so I think it’s something you should consider, but for now we went with plain old boxers, and some loose fitting shorts.”

Danny resisted the urge to hide his face in his hands, trust Kono to be so direct. Steve, appearing to be finished with the paperwork strode into the room with a purpose. “Come on Danno, let’s get you out of here,” he paused, looked at the newspaper opened to the classifieds that Danny was reading and his face fell. “What are you doing?” he demanded.

“I’m starting the arduous task of apartment hunting,” Danny replied, trying to look casual and nonchalant. 

Steve opened and closed his mouth a few times but nothing came out. He looked a little put out by something, but had obviously decided not to say anything, as he started staring at the ground.

Kono looked at both of them and sighed, rolling her eyes in frustration. “Danny, Steve wants you to move in with him, he’s already replaced your clothes and has been in touch with Rachel and your Mom to get all your photos replaced. Steve, Danny does not want to assume that he can just move in with you, that would be rude and what if you did not want him! Geez you fellas need to start discussing your feelings or you are never going to move on with this...this whatever it is!” 

Steve looked up from the floor at Danny, hope springing in his eyes, “Danno?” 

Danny smiled “Yes, Steven?”

“Will you move in with me, please?” Steve sounded a little like he was still unsure what Danny’s answer would be.

“What about your mother? Does she even know about us yet?” Danny did not want to get in the way of Steve bonding with his mom, but at the same time did not relish the thought of living under the same roof as Doris.

“I told her about us last week, but it turns out she already knew, she may have said something about the whole island knowing before either of us did. Anyway she has already moved out into her own apartment as she did not want to ‘crowd us’, but I think she just didn’t want to listen to us having sex.”

“Then of course I will you big lug,” Danny pulled Steve forward into a kiss, relief flooding through him.

“Good, now lets go home so we can celebrate in private,” Steve nodded his head towards Kono who was watching with a smile and chuckled against Danny neck.

“You know I’m not going to be up to doing much ‘celebrating’ for a bit, right?” Danny said quietly.

“That's okay, Danno, we can take it slow and gentle,” Steve said with a smirk and a ridiculous waggle of his eyebrows.


End file.
